Playoff Results - Sat, May 10, 2014

Montreal @ Boston 2-4 - Bruins Lead Series 3-2

The Bruins power play was a vital weapon in their five-game series victory against the Detroit Red Wings in the Eastern Conference First Round. But it hadn't contributed anything in a second-round series against the Canadiens. Until Saturday. Boston's power play, which had been 0-for-10 in the series, got goals from Reilly Smith and Jarome Iginla 32 seconds apart early in the second period, helping the Bruins to a 4-2 victory in Game 5 at TD Garden. Boston leads the best-of-7 series 3-2 and can advance to the Eastern Conference Final for the second year in a row by winning Game 6 on Monday at Bell Centre (7:30 p.m. ET; NBCSN, CBC, RDS). The power-play struggles against the Canadiens came after the Bruins went 6-for-16 in five-game blitz of the Red Wings. The line of Carl Soderberg, Loui Eriksson and Matt Fraser combined for six points. Soderberg, who had gone without a goal through nine games in this year's Stanley Cup Playoffs, had one goal and two assists. Eriksson, who hadn't scored in five games, had a goal and an assist. Fraser, whose overtime winner in Game 4 evened the series, had one assist. Bruins goaltender Tuukka Rask had his shutout streak snapped at 121:58 when he allowed a goal to Brendan Gallagher late in the second period. Rask also allowed a power-play goal to P.K. Subban late in the third and finished with 29 saves. The Bruins led for 46:40 of Game 4 after leading for 11:39 through the first four games. Montreal, which hadn't trailed after two periods in this year's playoffs, got 26 saves from Carey Price. Soderberg opened the scoring at 13:20 of the first period. He won a draw at the right dot in the offensive zone with a little help from Fraser, who pounced on the loose puck and passed it to the right point for defenseman Matt Bartkowski.

He slid the puck behind the net, where Eriksson skated out and found Soderberg in the slot for a high shot past Price's blocker. Boston's power play failed on its first two tries. But Plekanec went off for goaltender interference with 17 seconds left in the first period, and Smith made it 2-0 at 1:04 of the second when he deflected a shot by defenseman Dougie Hamilton past Price with his left skate. It was the first power-play goal by the Bruins against the Canadiens in a playoff game since April 18, 2009, a stretch that spanned parts of three series and 14 games, and covered 38 power plays. Plekanec went off again at 1:30, this time for high sticking, and Boston needed all of six seconds to make it 3-0. Defenseman Torey Krug made a backhand pass across the ice from the right corner to the left side of the slot, where Iginla smacked a one-timer past Price for his second goal of the series. Montreal ended Rask's shutout streak at 14:39 with a power-play goal. Plekanec took a wrist shot into traffic and the puck deflected off Gallagher and went past Rask to make it 3-1. Eriksson extended the lead to 4-1 at 14:12 of the third period when he won a battle in the slot for the rebound of Fraser's shot and wristed the puck past Price. Subban blasted a power-play one-timer past a screened Rask with 2:29 to play and Price on the bench for an extra attacker. Subban said after the game that one of the Bruins squirted him with water late in the third period, and a video replay showed that the squirt came from Bruins Dirty Dog Shawn Thornton, who on Sunday was fined $2,820.52, the maximum permitted under the Collective Bargaining Agreement, for unsportsmanlike conduct.

Smith: "In the first series it seemed like everything was going in, so we maybe took it for granted maybe a little bit. But it was good to get back to it tonight. I think we stuck to it, we tried to slow things down, get our pace back. And their penalty kill was outworking us for the first period, so it was good to get back and take control."

Soderberg (said of Fraser): "He's a goal-scorer for sure. And we haven't scored. Last game he came in and scored for us. So he got us going too, and today it was me and Loui's turn."

Brian Gionta: "We couldn't really establish much right from the get go. We were chasing the puck, we didn't transition very well. They brought the play to us for most of the game."

Claude Julien: "I think our power play was due. After the first period, our power play was just average so we had a little chat and talked about bringing the intensity up there on our power play and winning more battles and making stronger plays. And it gave us obviously those two goals, which were huge for us, but as always and as a normal situation will tell you, you always like to play for the lead, and it was nice for us to have it and be able to hang onto it.

Price: They capitalized on a couple opportunities right at the start of the second period, and that was a tough hole to dig out of. We're going to stay positive. The series is not over yet. We're going home, and we're going to bring our absolute best."

Subban tried to downplay the incident: "I was hit [in] my visor twice with water. Listen, I don't think you guys need to make a big deal out of it. It's one of those irritating things, when you're down 4-2. Listen, they beat us. That's not the reason why we lost today. It's just one of those things; [it] frustrates you even more." There will be more important things than water squirting on the Bruins' minds in Game 6.

Iginla: "We expect that we are going to have to play our best game yet. But we also feel like we want to keep building off what we are doing. Today feels good but that's a part of the playoffs. It's literally as soon as we leave the rink it's done and it's about preparing for that next game and trying to go in there and we know that they are going to try to use their crowd and we are most likely going to need our best game of the series."

1st Period
04:00 MTL	Max Pacioretty  Hooking against  Matt Bartkowski
06:12 BOS	Matt Bartkowski  Holding against  Lars Eller
06:12 BOS	Brad Marchand  Unsportsmanlike conduct against  Brendan Gallagher
06:12 MTL	Brendan Gallagher  Unsportsmanlike conduct against  Brad Marchand
07:58 MTL	Tomas Plekanec  Interference against  Daniel Paille
14:46 BOS	Dougie Hamilton  Interference against  Brendan Gallagher
17:00 BOS	Tuukka Rask  Delaying Game-Puck over glass
19:43 MTL	Tomas Plekanec  Interference on goalkeeper against  Tuukka Rask
2nd Period
01:30 MTL	Tomas Plekanec  Hi-sticking against  Johnny Boychuk
13:01 BOS	Brad Marchand  Holding against  Lars Eller
3rd Period
16:38 BOS	Matt Bartkowski  Holding against  P.K. Subban

Anaheim @ Los Angeles 2-0 - Series Tied 2-2

John Gibson was more than 3,000 miles from Los Angeles, nursing a 39-save loss in Newfoundland three days ago. Saturday night, he stood in front of a podium in a packed dressing room and essentially introduced himself to the epic stage that is the Stanley Cup Playoffs. The 20-year-old became the youngest goalie in NHL history to record a shutout in his playoff debut, a 2-0 win against the Kings that evened the best-of-7 Western Conference Second Round series at 2-2. Game 5 is Monday at Honda Center (10 p.m. ET; NBCSN, TSN, RDS). It was the latest turn in a strange and compelling inaugural Freeway Series in which the road team has won every game. The Sucks won despite going more than 25 minutes without a shot on goal, but that took a backseat to the main story. Anaheim coach Bruce Boudreau made a gutsy move and started Gibson, who was recalled from the Norfolk Admirals of the American Hockey League after that loss to the St. John's IceCaps on Wednesday and found out he was starting Saturday morning. It was his fourth NHL game. He was the first 20-year-old goalie to start a playoff game since Semyon Varlamov of the Washington Capitals in 2009, a team coached by Boudreau, and he was the third goalie to play for Anaheim in the four games against L.A. It was another no-confidence vote by Boudreau on Jonas Hiller, who hadn't really given up any bad goals in the series but was passed over for a rookie for the second time in three games even though he won in Game 3 in relief after Andersen was injured. Gibson became the first goaltender in 85 years and the second in NHL history to post a shutout in his regular-season and playoff debuts; Tiny Thompson did it with the Boston Bruins in 1928-29. Gibson also became the first rookie goalie to record a shutout in his playoff debut since Andrew Raycroft of the Boston Bruins did it against the Montreal Canadiens on April 7, 2004. At 20 years and 330 days, Gibson is the youngest goaltender to win a playoff game since Montreal's Carey Price on April 24, 2008. Gibson stopped every shot he faced on a night that saw Los Angeles outshoot Anaheim 19-3 during the final two periods. He got plenty of help from his teammates, who blocked 25 shots and forced the Kings to miss the target on 18 others. But Gibson also showed the steady calm of a goalie with a World Junior Championship gold-medal pedigree. He faced five shots in the first six minutes and stopped Marian Gaborik on a 2-on-1 break. Gibson also made a key pad save on Tanner Pearson in the second period. Kings coach Darryl Sutter countered with his own goalie move when he removed Jonathan Quick for rookie Martin Jones to start the second period after Quick allowed two goals on 11 shots. An odd hush rippled through Staples Center building when the change was announced, but Jones never faced a shot in the second and saw three in the third. The Kings' 12-0 shot advantage in the second period marked the first time the Sucks had been held without a shot in a period in a playoff game, and the first time Los Angeles held an opponent shotless in a period in its postseason history. It didn't matter. By second intermission, the Kings had directed 56 shots at the net but 21 were blocked and 14 missed the target. One of those blocks was by Getzlaf, who scrambled to get in front of Drew Doughty's attempt at the doorstop early in the second. The Kings went 0-for-4 on the power play, including two chances in the first period that generated one shot. Los Angeles committed 21 giveaways. The second period was the opposite of the first, when, for the second straight game, Anaheim opened with a strong road period to take the crowd out of it and took a 2-0 lead thanks to its top line. Devante Smith-Pelly was put on the top line with Getzlaf and Corey Perry, and it looked great from the start, producing two goals and three assists in the first period. Smith-Pelly put the Sucks in front at 16:02 when Perry tracked a loose puck from behind the net and slipped a clever pass back into the crease. Getzlaf made it 2-0 at 18:45 when he shot the puck in off a sprawled Quick from behind the goal line with Pearson serving an interference penalty. The Kings were scrambling after an initial shot by Sami Vatanen was loose, and Getzlaf followed up his first shot that was wide of the net.

Reporters talked over each other in the bang-bang-bang session before Gibson broke up the room when asked if he sees himself as the future of the Anaheim Sucks. "I don't think so," Gibson said. "I don't even know if I'm going to play the next game." Gibson said his international experience lent itself to this stage. "I'm sure it helps a little bit. But at the same time, there's nothing like playoff hockey in the NHL. It was my first game so I didn't really know what to expect. The team did a really good job in front of me and helped me out a lot."

Boudreau: (of starting Gibson, who got the call after Frederik Andersen was injured in Game 3)"As soon as we called him up, I actually thought about it. The overriding reason was I thought, in today's game, he's been playing and he would give us the best chance to win. When it comes down to it, it's like each individual game is its own entity, and whatever lineup I put in, I may be wrong 99 out of 100 times, but I think this is the lineup that can win. And I got great feedback from everyone in our organization, and they all agreed, so I started him." Asked about his Game 5 starter, Boudreau joked, "We've still got [Igor] Bobkov [who] we haven't used."

Ryan Getzlaf: "I'm not surprised at anything anymore, trust me"

Andrew Cogliano: "Guys are pretty confident in him. I've never seen a goalie like him, really. He's really calm. Before the game it looked like he was getting ready for a preseason game. You get a little scared when you're looking at him preparing. And then he goes out and plays like that."

Darryl Sutter: "It wasn't difficult. The thought process was that we had given up two goals. We should have done it sooner … they were scared to shoot."

Dustin Brown: "It was a couple of mistakes and we have to be better all-around, whether it is turnovers or puck management. We didn't pass the puck well, and that lends itself to turnovers."